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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24114325">Fandom: History, Corruption, Death.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyplayer/pseuds/Skyplayer'>Skyplayer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>No Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Socialism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:33:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>904</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24114325</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyplayer/pseuds/Skyplayer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An essay on the history, state, and future of Fandom, as it relates to the corruption of media and consumers by capital.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fandom: History, Corruption, Death.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fandom is dead.</p>
<p>  To those reading this in the future, the very near future, or even the present it would seem, the idea of a Fandom may be hard to explain. The word is surely still in use, warped by corporations to act as a synonym for their consumers, but the original concept was to describe an autonomous process: a natural gathering of individuals sharing a passion,  brought together by convenience and happenstance. A leaderless and formless set of humans.</p>
<p>  While many reading this would associate fandom with the now widespread battle for Clout and Brands, it existed long before the internet gave such things value. Groups in the 19th century gathered to discuss Sherlock Holmes, with fanfiction in the early 20th century already taking form recognizable by modern standards. So what is the definitive purpose and form of Fandom? Or at least the point where it was the most beneficial to the forms of art that it focues on?</p>
<p>  If such a point ever actually happened, it was the early days of the internet, when web-rings and IRC chats were the main methods of communication and Crazy Frog still played on the radio (although he is irrelevant, I'd hope). It was this point that allowed for the greatest spread of Fandom's most positive influence: the ability to bring groups of people together in common interest, without a higher power of governing. Private chats and circles of friends that self-moderated, with no interaction or oppression from the corporations that owned the discussion, where people took control of the properties for themselves. Art and fanfic were spread peer-to-peer, purely for the enjoyment and shared love for the content.</p>
<p>   And then the corporations ruined it.</p>
<p>    Once the big platforms established, this era of community-driven fandom was dead. While some would argue that they lived in the height of Fandom, perhaps from 2009-2013 or so, by even then it was nothing but a corpse being puppeteered by the corporations. Private circles were replaced with public crowds: sites like Tumblr and Twitter where user-content was slapped with tags, every one of them given a place in the spotlight. With the evolving nature of The Algorithms, this lead to the horrific arrangement of Peer vs. Peer: artists were now competing for attention, waging war for the sake of Clout. The corporations that owned the properties saw this as the ultimate opportunity to capitalize on.</p>
<p>  Thus began the worst period for Fandom. The entire industry of entertainment became a game of Brand: regurgitated properties and characters. Corporations profiting off the artists through programs that made the artists feel important to the Brand, fueling the Peer vs Peer mentality. You didn't just enjoy anything anymore, you needed to live it and you needed to rely on it for your existence. </p>
<p>  Nothing you created was for the sake of creation or enjoyment. You needed to sell, you needed to profit, you needed to fight against anyone who shared your passion as they were threats that blocked you from your livelihood. Everyone assumed everything you made was for the sake of directly making money or of being hired by the corporations. Arbitrary statistics dominated over authorial intent or purpose: more followers, more shares, more likes, more money, more more more. An endless cycle of the corporations cheering on the crowd of the proletariat trampling each other for a meager amount of the rations. </p>
<p>  Is this cycle upheld by anything other than emotional manipulation? The means of production for art are already in the control of the proletariat, there is almost no limit to what you can create. The only control corporations have over fanworks are manipulative agendas to make the masses believe that the corporations have all the power. Incorporeal ideas of copyright and canon, that they somehow "control" the formless ideas we can create, and that any further ideas need be hoarded and kept under lock and key: that your ideas exist to feed you. Write a book, but sell the book, profit off the book, let the corporations own the rights to your book.  Let the book gestate a new generation for the corporations to own and start the cycle anew. </p>
<p>  How can we break the cycle? Again I look to the reader of this, in hopes they live in a future where this is nothing but a historical documentation on our culture. However, you're most likely still reading this as another trapped in the cycle, perhaps thinking of this essay as a rant or a call to arms. You wouldn't be wrong, I'd just be upset that such is still the case. </p>
<p>  For now, in the frozen moment of history that I type this in, this is indeed a call to arms. Go write for the sake of writing. Create for the sake of creating. Paint a picture, code a game, write with pen and paper or alter the fabric history and call the act of change itself art. Skill and talent are arbitrary measurements of the profitability of your work, you can create with as much purpose and intent as any other artist, and any art you create with the intent of refusal to the corporation's cycle is an act of socialism. </p>
<p>  The modern idea of Fandom exists only as a decaying corpse manipulated post-humorously by capitalism.  </p>
<p>  Find your own "Fandom", as it once was at its peak: a solidarity of thinkers and workers that dare to be independent.</p>
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